Suburban voters critical to Democratic victories over the past four years are giving President Joe Biden’s proposed tax hikes a big thumbs down, according to data gathered by a pair of conservative groups.
In panel interviews, suburban voters spread across 16 states expressed deep reservations about the tax increases Biden is proposing to finance a $2.2 trillion jobs plan that invests in infrastructure and expands social programs. Promises to spare people earning less than $400,000 are failing to assuage. Suburban voters are convinced that taxes will cost them money, no matter where the hammer drops, and are perplexed that the White House would encumber an economy recovering from the coronavirus.
“For now, Uncle Joe’s personality does not offend people — they are fine with boring,” said Liesl Hickey, a Republican strategist and founder of N2 America, a GOP-aligned political nonprofit organization that studies suburban voters. “But his economic policies are downright radical, and suburban voters, a discerning and thoughtful group, will not give him a pass.”
Biden’s initial $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, billed as pandemic relief, was warmly received across the political spectrum when enacted last month, and the president enjoyed a rock-solid 55.2% job approval rating as he headed toward mid-April hawking a proposal for government largess, the American Jobs Plan. But Republicans are warning that public support for Biden’s economic agenda could unravel as more suburban voters get wind of his plan for significant tax increases.
Suburban voters matter to Democrats. They were crucial to the coalition that pushed Biden past former President Donald Trump in November and put Democrats in charge of the House and Senate. That’s why apprehension to the president’s tax hikes, which he has described as fair and fiscally responsible, is troublesome for Democrats laboring to defend thin congressional majorities in 2022, and they threaten to sink the American Jobs Plan in its current form.
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“The Trump-Pence tax relief created more than 5 million jobs in two years. A massive, multitrillion-dollar tax increase is going to kill jobs when Americans need them the most as we emerge from the pandemic,” said Marc Short, a Republican operative advising the Coalition to Protect American Workers, a political group partnering with N2 America to research public opinion on federal tax policy.
Short, until recently the chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, helped launch the Coalition to Protect American Workers to harness opposition to Biden’s tax initiatives and pressure Congress to slam on the brakes. The president wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% less than four years after Trump slashed it from 35% to 21%, and people earning more than $400,000 could see rates rise from 37% to 39.6%.
Since Biden’s inauguration, the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, for N2 America, has periodically interviewed a panel of 40 college-educated suburban voters, men and women, who live in Arizona, California, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. From the outset, these voters’ biggest concern about full Democratic control in Washington has been the prospect for higher taxes.
That insight, in addition to qualitative data drawn from the latest round of panel interviews, is partly why Hickey and Short are confident that Biden’s drive to raise taxes, abetted by many Democrats in Congress, could be a political boon for Republicans. Here are some samples of the responses from recent panel interviews with suburban voters:
- North Carolina female voter: “It will certainly hurt the economy as businesses will not hire new people and may not open new offices or move parts of their business or production out of the country. Washington needs to at least leave taxes alone. They just need to stop spending so much in such a stupid manner.”
- Michigan female voter: “I don’t think now is the right time for taxes. … The economy needs to stable out after these COVID issues. There is so much uncertainty with everything moving forward. … The economy needs to grow. Right now, people are just starting to go back to work. If you put a tax increase on business, they will filter it down to consumers.”
- Nevada female voter: “I don’t think taxes should be raised now. Ultimately, corporations will pass that cost to the consumer, and then the consumer will spend less and can potentially cripple the economy. I am already shellshocked at the price of gas and already have had to make adjustments with the drastic increase that’s occurred. Corporations will leave America to avoid the taxes regardless, leaving a void anyway.”
- Minnesota male voter: “I certainly think corporations could, should pay more, but again, they’re not just going to sit back and let it happen without changing their practices, prices. They’ll end up passing the additional expense on to the consumer in higher prices or their workforce by cutting positions to pay for it.”
- Arizona male voter: “While I don’t think it will increase my taxes, I don’t believe it will help me either. In that case, I don’t think that change just to say you are making a change is good. This tax change will also decrease the economic growth of the country by 1.5%. It also increases the estate tax, which I believe is the government stealing from successful family businesses.”
